ARTICLES ABOUT RESULT BY DATE - PAGE 2

To, The Hon'ble Prime Minister of India I took voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS, 1978 batch — Karnataka Cadre) in 2011. I had never read The Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 till recently, when one of our distinguished colleagues, a lady officer of the 1977 batch, was arrested by the CBI, in the case of renewal of a permit given by the government for mining. Section 13 of the Act defines criminal misconduct by a public servant.

NEW DELHI: On the morning of May 16, 2014, when counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections was on, Narendra Modi was alone in his room meditating with no television on and took telephone calls only after 12 noon. "In the morning when the counting was going on, I was totally alone and had no TV on. I was finishing off my own spiritual activities and enjoying my meditation time after the grueling elections," the Prime Minister says. On the day of counting, he says he "started taking calls only from 12 noon and the first call on the results was from BJP president Rajnath Singh telling me that it was a foregone conclusion that we would sweep the polls".

ZURICH: BMW AG's dividend proposal of 2.90 euros disappointed investors and sent shares in the German luxury car maker lower even though its 2014 operating profit of 9.1 billion euros ($9.6 billion) beat forecasts. While the dividend proposed by BMW on Thursday was up from 2.60 euros per share of common stock in 2013, it was not as high as some analysts had expected and helped send the company's shares 2.3 percent lower to 116.60 euros by 1137 GMT. Evercore ISI analysts said they had expected a dividend proposal of 3.30 euros, or a payout ratio of about 35 percent.

TOKYO: Japanese government bonds fell on Tuesday, with the benchmark 10-year yield hitting a four-month high after lacklustre results at a "liquidity-enhancing" auction. The 10-year cash JGB yield rose 4 basis points to 0.465 percent, its highest since November 2014, and more than double its record low of 0.195 percent touched on Jan. 20. Japan's finance ministry conducts monthly "liquidity-enhancing" auctions of older notes in order to improve market liquidity. The ministry offered 300 billion yen of JGBs with remaining maturity of 15.5 years to 39 years on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: Incentives in the new foreign trade policy (FTP), to be unveiled by month-end or first week of April, should focus on only three nations for boosting exports, traders body FIEO said today. As the global economy is in a weak state, announcing incentives for a lot many countries may not help Indian exports, FIEO reasoned, adding that a sharp focus on a smaller number of markets will be more useful. "Instead of announcing incentives for several countries, the commerce ministry should focus only on three countries - China and two oil/mineral rich African nations.

BENGALURU: Former world number one Martina Hingis says the future of her partnership with India's top player Sania Mirza would depend on the results they get on the WTA circuit. Sania split with Chinese Taipei's Hsieh after playing only four tournaments together this season. Hingis said since the two of them play different styles of game, it should suit them. "Sania and I can be competitive as a pair because our style of tennis is completely different. Sania is good from the forehand side and I am known to have a really good backhand.

BENGALURU: Infosys Chief Operating Officer UB Pravin Rao flagged concerns over demand from clients in sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance, and energy, ahead of the company's fourth quarter results in April. At an investor conference in Mumbai, Rao also warned that India's $146 billion information technology industry is unlikely to ever see growth rates of around 20% and above, like it did 4-5 years ago. "We're seeing budget cuts in some of the financial services companies, but at the same time we're seeing some uptick in Europe," said Rao, an Infosys veteran.

NEW DELHI: The 'Make in India' programme will start yielding results on the ground in "minimum 18 months" while structural changes may take years, a top government official today said. "Its too early. You see the programme was launched around September (2014). Its been 5-6 months. You are talking about structural changes. You are talking about scrapping processes, procedures. It is going to take years. I am telling you, you would not get benefits (soon)...," said Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP)

MUMBAI: Economic indicators may be beginning to look up, but corporate earnings are not backing up on the macro-front with Q3 numbers being disappointing, according to the newly launched international rating agency ARC Ratings. The deterioration in the financial condition of corporates in the just-concluded third quarter is especially steep, with net sales contracting by 0.2 per cent as against growth of a over 6.5 per cent in Q3 of FY14 while net profit declined by a steep 28.3 per cent compared to an over 2.5 per cent growth in Q3 of FY14, the agency said.

NEW DELHI: India is not expecting any dramatic results from Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar's visit to Pakistan on Tuesday, senior officials said today emphasising that his visit was a "SAARC yatra and not a Pak yatra". Jaishankar will be travelling to Bhutan on Sunday and go to Bangladesh next day before flying off from Dhaka to Islamabad on March three, as part of India's initiative to reach out to SAARC countries. With the media focus centred on the Pakistan visit which comes seven months after India had called off foreign secretary-level talks with that country, officials underlined that while the basic objective of the trip was the SAARC outreach, bilateral matters would also come up there.